Sheets of Egyptian Cotton
by Citizenjess
Summary: Evil truly does lurk around every corner. Written for mendeia. Crack!fic.


Written for mendeia because she's basically awesome.

Summary: When you're Mighty Max, you tend to find that evil truly does lurk around every corner. Rated PG. Title is stolen from a terrible Jesse Spencer song featured in the movie "Uptown Girls", which I am not afraid to say that I loved.

… Okay, I'm a little afraid, but still.

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**Sheets of Egyptian Cotton **

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That he was not spending his Saturday indoors, cleaning his room, or doing his best to fake it by shoveling the majority of his books, athletic gear, and dirty laundry under his bed, made Max a very happy Cap-Bearer indeed. That he was spending it instead being fairly dragged into Bed, Bath & Beyond by his mother, who was intent on squaring away new accessories for the guest room she'd been redecorating during some downtime at the museum where she worked, made Max yearn for the manual labor.

Well, almost.

"Come on, you know what kind of curtains would go in there better than I do," Max protested, doing his best to pout. At thirteen, the effect was perhaps less far-reaching than it had been when he'd pulled the same face at the age of three.

Sure enough, his mother just rolled her eyes good naturedly. "You didn't complain when we stopped into the shoe store earlier," she admonished, pointing down at Max's feet, clad in clean new trainers. Max knew as well as his mother did that one adventure with Virgil and Norman would turn them from crisp white to dirt-colored, but it was a moot point at the time. "Look, just wander around and see if anything strikes your fancy. I want to redo your bathroom sometime soon, too; maybe there's a pattern in here that you like."

With that, his mom strode off towards the throw-rugs, leaving Max standing near a plump, middle-aged bespectacled woman who was running the cash register. "That's a nice hat," she said conversationally.

"Yeah, thanks," Max said absently, turning down an aisle filled with coordinating bathroom fixtures. He wasn't trying to be rude or anything – sometimes, he even enjoyed making vague references to his calling and watching them pass right over people's heads. He meandered further into the depths of the store, pausing every so often to pick up random artifacts: the soap dispenser shaped like a palm tree; the eclectic collection of toilet brush holders. He was just about to turn down a row of towels, when a familiar, gravelly voice made him stop dead in his tracks.

"Are those the 6000 thread count Egyptian cotton? Find them for me in purple. No, Warmonger, you insipid fool! Blue is NOT 'close enough'." Skullmaster. Shopping, apparently. In Bed, Bath & Beyond. With his mother across the store, trying to decide between a rounded or square accent-rug, no less. Max couldn't decide whether the surreal situation warranted laughter or tears. He eventually realized he'd been holding his breath, and let it out slowly. Instinctively, he clutched at the Cap on his head. He'd never actually expected to run into his hated enemy on such casual terms; he suspected Virgil hadn't anticipated it, either.

It was then that the Mighty One realized that he didn't know how to contact his mentor in case of emergencies like this. It was odd; all the time they'd known each other, and it had always been Virgil who'd touched base first – usually at inopportune times, like during the scant moments of free time that Max had wanted to reserve for video games and baseball and video games about baseball; though occasionally, the fowl had managed to find need of the Cap-Bearer's services during a test or something, for which Max had been eternally grateful. He didn't know whether the Lemurian even had a phone number, or a mailing address, or e-mail (he suspected not; even though Virgil could assume a masterful command of modern technology when the situation called for it, he rarely, if ever, did so for recreational purposes).

Max didn't dare attempt to steal a glance at Skullmaster. It wasn't that he wasn't positive it was him, but he had to admit he was unnervingly curious about what his sworn enemy was doing in the bathroom décor section of a department store in California. He heard the sound of scuffling – probably Warmonger, he decided, maneuvering awkwardly around the aisles – and willed himself to stay discreetly hidden from view. The back of his neck prickled; ideally, he wanted to grab his mother and hightail it out of there as fast as his legs could carry him, but he knew he'd endanger them both by making any sudden movements when Skullmaster was so close by.

After what seemed like an eternity, the overlord let out a soft, satisfied chuckle. "That will do," he said appraisingly. "Come, Warmonger." As soon as Max caught the first glimpse of Skullmaster's tell-tale cape, he threw himself between two aisles, practically hugging a tall display case of bathroom cleaning products. His heart beat crazily. He often wondered how Virgil expected him to actually kill Skullmaster. Had the Prophecy added a stipulation that Norman could have helped, he might have felt better; as it was, the fact that he was cowering next to a row of toilet bowl cleaners instead of facing fate outlined his hesitancy rather well.

Buoyed by a sudden need to, at the very least, figure out what Skullmaster was up to, Max left the safety of his perch and crept back down the towel aisle, carefully keeping to the sides so as not to out-and-out give himself away. He peeked around a corner warily, watching the overlord and his henchman approach the frumpy woman at the register. "Put these in a bag," Warmonger ordered her, tossing about ten or twelve towels in varying sizes onto the counter, all in different shades of purple.

If the store associate found something unusual about the scenario, she did not, to her credit, show it, simply setting to work ringing up everything. The last item, a small clear box containing pink bath beads, sank to the bottom of the bag with a soft 'clink' sound (Max noticed Warmonger wince as Skullmaster eyed him with contempt – it was obvious which of the two favored Pomegranate Passion). "That'll be $87.52," the woman said. "And um, if you sign up for our special members' credit card today, you'll get 10 percent off of that."

"Oooh," Warmonger started to say, but Skullmaster growled.

"No."

"All right," the woman said, trying to sound congenial. "Well, then … it's $87.52 total. Will that be cash or credit?"

Max, still not quite sure if he could believe what he was seeing, half-expected Skullmaster to whip something out from the folds of his cape and kill the well-meaning associate in cold blood. He was perhaps even more unnerved when the looming overlord simply barked an order at his main minion: "Pay her, Warmonger." Somehow, crumpled bills were produced, and the Greatest Evil the World Had Ever Known, as Virgil once called him, left the store relatively peaceably with Warmonger in tow.

Once they were gone, the woman blinked a couple of times. "You see the weirdest people in this town," she muttered to herself. Silently, Max agreed; hesitantly, he stepped out from where he'd been obscured, struck with a sudden pressing need to make sure his mother was all right.

Sure enough, he found her in the kitchen implements, cooing over cow-shaped salt-and-pepper shakers. A nearby cart was filled with what appeared to be matching guest room décor. "Do you think the green accent pieces will go well with the bedspread I picked out from that catalog?" she mused as her wayward son approached. "Because there's some lovely blues back there, too …"

"Yeah, yeah, sure, it's fine," Max said hurriedly. "Can we go, please? Like now?"

His mom laughed. "I guess I've made you suffer long enough," she said, rubbing his back affectionately. "Did you see anything interesting?" she asked, placing the shaker set back on the shelf and pushing the cart around a corner towards the front of the store.

Max trailed after her and grinned. "You could say that."


End file.
